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Learning Your Earning: Are Labor Income Shocks Really Very Persistent?

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Author Info
Fatih Guvenen

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Abstract

The current literature offers two views on the nature of the labor income process. According to the first view, individuals are subject to very persistent income shocks while facing similar life-cycle income profiles (the RIP process, Thomas MaCurdy 1982). According to the alternative, individuals are subject to shocks with modest persistence while facing individual-specific profiles (the HIP process, Lee A. Lillard and Yoram A. Weiss 1979). In this paper we study the restrictions imposed by these two processes on consumption data—in the context of a life-cycle model—to distinguish between the two views. We find that the life-cycle model with a HIP process, which has not been studied in the previous literature, is consistent with several features of consumption data, whereas the model with a RIP process is consistent with some, but not with others. We conclude that the HIP model could be a credible contender to—and along some dimensions, a more coherent alternative than—the RIP model. (JEL D83, D91, E21, J31)

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Publisher Info
Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 97 (2007)
Issue (Month): 3 (June)
Pages: 687-712
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Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:97:y:2007:i:3:p:687-712

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Giorgio E. Primiceri & Thijs van Rens, 2006. "Heterogeneous Life-Cycle Profiles, Income Risk and Consumption Inequality," Economics Working Papers 945, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Aug 2007. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Fatih Guvenen, 2007. "An Empirical Investigation of Labor Income Processes," NBER Working Papers 13394, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Stéphane Bonhomme & Jean-Marc Robin, 2008. "Generalized nonparametric deconvolution with an application to earnings dynamics," CeMMAP working papers CWP03/08, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies. [Downloadable!]
  4. Fatih Guvenen, 2007. "An empirical investigation of labor income processes," IFS Working Papers W07/13, Institute for Fiscal Studies. [Downloadable!]
  5. Burhanettin Kuruscu, 2006. "Training and Lifetime Income," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 832-846, June.
  6. Fatih Guvenen & Burhanettin Kuruscu, 2006. "Ben-Porath meets skill-biased technical change: a theoretical analysis of rising inequality," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 144, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
  7. Dirk Krueger & Fabrizio Perri, 2005. "Does income inequality lead to consumption equality? evidence and theory," Staff Report 363, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  8. Fatih Guvenen & Burhanettin Kuruscu, 2007. "A Quantitative Analysis of the Evolution of the U.S. Wage Distribution: 1970-2000," NBER Working Papers 13095, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Mark Huggett & Gustavo Ventura & Amir Yaron, 2007. "Sources of Lifetime Inequality," NBER Working Papers 13224, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  10. Fatih Guvenen & Burhanettin Kuruscu, 2007. "Understanding the Evolution of the U.S. Wage Distribution: A Theoretical Analysis," NBER Working Papers 13096, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Amir Yaron, 2007. "The Research Agenda: Amir Yaron on Lifetime Inequality and Long Run Risks and Asset Pricing," EconomicDynamics Newsletter, Review of Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(1), November. [Downloadable!]
  12. Abigail Wozniak, 2006. "Educational Differences in the Migration Responses of Young Workers to Local Labor Market Conditions," IZA Discussion Papers 1954, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
  13. Heathcote, Jonathan & Storesletten, Kjetil & Violante, Giovanni L, 2007. "Consumption and Labour Supply with Partial Insurance: An Analytical Framework," CEPR Discussion Papers 6280, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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